Any Advice or Tips to get into the Game Industry
Hi, I am new here and also new to animation, anyways I am at age early enough to kind of steer myself towards a field I like. Animation has for years made me curious on whats behind it. I want to be a future Character Animator in the Game Industry.
So I came across to this forum if any one around here can give me tips, or even advice that would help me later get into the game industry or that would help personally.
I am a teenager and would kindly love any advice from those who work with Animation software , in the game industry, or even those who would kindly offer some tips.
Thanks again
So I came across to this forum if any one around here can give me tips, or even advice that would help me later get into the game industry or that would help personally.
I am a teenager and would kindly love any advice from those who work with Animation software , in the game industry, or even those who would kindly offer some tips.
Thanks again
Replies
Games Industry Mentor has a episode specifically on animation, and another on portfolios and breaking into the industry.
I've heard some good things about Animation Mentor, though they weren't from people I know personally.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284"]The Animator's Survival Kit[/ame] is a good book on the subject of animation.
That's about as far as my animation knowledge goes.
Good luck
Linky :
http://www.11secondclub.com/
Yes, Indeed. I've actually just finished reading The Animators Survival Kit on E-book and it's fantastic, albiet very traditional - but this helps give you a great traditional grounding that you can transition into any 3d app.
I've been looking at animation mentor for a while now and unfortunatley no one under the age of eighteen can go so that means I'll have to wait two years. It's a shame because that place is very proffesional.
Also, 11 second club rocks.
There are 2 books youl need if your serious, the Animators survival kit by Richard Williams (almost a bible heh) and The Illusion of Life
They can be expensive but there both worth there weight in gold!
Next, dont shy away from the hours and hours it will take before you even start seeing results. I went through a mediocre University for 4 years and when I came out all I could understand is that it was harder than I thought it was going to be.
After you wrap your head around that little truth youl be fine.
11 second club is definately your best internet resource, enter the competitions each month and youl start making progress.
Make cool bouncing balls, balls with personality, angry balls, balls that are really tired, balls with a story (can you see the theme?) etc..
Once your happy with how well you can animate a bouncin ball do more.
Slowly build yourself upto a human figure start with walks, runs, injuries, stories, acting, dialogue and put it all together..if your more orientated towards games use really simple rigs and try to make really complex movement.
Start noticing how people walk, what makes them different etc, half the battle for an animator is noticing the little things, you should already be doing that and it should be really excrutiatingly annoying that you cant animate the thing to do what you want.
Also, never let the computer do the work for you, or itl slap you in the face.
A tad overkill sorry ;D but man I love helping animators who are stuggling.
The Illusion of Life is great mostly because it outlines the 12 priciples of animation which you can look up online. The rest of it is a good read and explains a lot but I would say if you're put off by reading at least look up the 12 principles. 10 of which really apply to this industry. They should help guide you as you learn to animate.
There are two things you need to learn.
1) The technical ins and outs of whatever application you choose.
2) How to animate.
Some people get these two confused and think that knowing the technical is the same as being a great animator. It's only 25% even if it feels like 100% when you start.
Start small.
"You have to fall down before you can walk and you have to walk before you can run."
Just about everyone bites off more than they can chew and decides to some grandiose short film with a lot of action that would normally take a small army of animators to do, not to mention learning lighting, sound, modeling, composition, directing, camera work, story telling and half a dozen other jobs people take for granted.
Most people who go down this path end up missing the fundamentals and half assing their way through a bunch of things that have nothing to do with animation and because of all that half assing their animation learning is slowed way down.
Like Flynn mentioned bouncing balls are amazing at teaching the basics. You might think its boring but its a good way to get your feet wet and learn a lot in a short amount of time.
Animation mentor is great they have a lot of free resources to help animators. The instructors are in to serve up better animators and they'll help you get some great animation skills when other places focus on the technical. They are kind of expensive and the certificate you get isn't worth much, it won't get you a visa and people think you're crazy if you make it your after high school college plan. But its the skills and the connections that you get that are great.
Get your hands on Maya (somehow), it's the Industry standard for animation and find some free rigged characters, we used MooM at school, he can be found in a free bundle pack here:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=137361
Once you have a rigged character import 'em and figure out how they work. They're essentially complicated marionettes. Click any and all buttons associated with the rig. No two rigs are the same, but they share similarities. Some have cool features, some don't, it's a crapshoot when you don't make your own rig (learning to rig will make you a more valuable employee and a better animator in general, but don't worry about that for now). Once you kinda know how to manipulate the rig and move his various body parts, find a tutorial on the the curves editor/ animation and just go to town.
It can be a bit daunting but it's fun at first too. Just explore the program for the first day or two having fun if you haven't already. Once you feel a little comfortable, move on to actually trying to do a walk cycle, there are TONS of tutorials on that, both 2d and 3d tutorials are relevant, but at the beginning try to stick to Maya tutorials until you're comfortable with the program. Once you know your animation in Maya, any animation resource will do. You may be surprised how quickly you can move from basic tutorials to doing your own thing.
Animation's tricky and like vig said, you don't want to go overboard. The truth of the matter is you can tell from 5 seconds on animation if someone's good or not, or completely amazing. That's really all you need, a single action: a throw, a fall, a squat, a jog, a bite, etc. Don't spend months producing 5 minutes of horrible animation. Spend 5 months and get a good walk cycle done, a good run cycle, and very polished original stuff. Once you've TOTALLY nailed the basics you can do pretty much anything. Just remember squash and stretch. Think of movement as a vibration that goes down the arms and legs, eventually reaching the toes and fingers. Snap is hugely important too, momentum that caries into the fingers and cause them to lag back and eventually flow back forward in a walk cycle. You need to find all the nuances that makes motion look real and exaggerate them to be a good animator. Plenty of little things to think about. In the end, you just need common sense, does it look weird? If so why? "Ohhhh, i forgot to make him look at it before getting up to pick it up." Lots of problem solving like that in animation.
I know this is a ton at once, but i might as well throw in one last bit of advice since it's important. Animation is all about building it up all at the same time. Every action will have a reaction to some part of the body, unless it's the toes and fingers. You need to build it all up from the base, you need forethought and an understanding of how actions affect other actions which only comes through trial and error, expect your first animations to be terrible. Our animation teacher compared it to a tree, start with the branches, the most sweeping actions that are going to affect the most of the body need to go in first because every other motion is affected by that. If you animate arms picking up a ball, nail it, then animate the person bending over, suddenly the arms aren't going for the ball any more and go right through the floor. Get most of the major actions done then branch out to the other actions. Save polish for the end. And when you polish, don't stop, keep going. The difference between good animation and GREAT animation is TONS of polish and subtlety.
Animation is a great field to study. To be blunt it's easier than 3d art. Yes there are a few elements that are hard to pick up and if you're not good with interfaces the curves editor can be very scary, but put in the hours for a few months and you can really be on your way to being a true animator. You either got it in ya or ya don't. Surf youtube, look at other people's animation demo reels, judge yourself off that. Don't look at pixar, that's a collaboration of many people over years to make something much more than just animation (though their animation is top notch). Ignore cool camera work, glitsy textures, all that. Think purely in animation.
It's probably the #1 skill any good animator has above all else. You'll need to dig deeper into the motion then what people ever realize when watching, that means looking at things and understanding them on a deeper level then most people realize.
A regular person will tell you leaves blow in the wind.
An animator will explain how the different parts of a leaf bends, what starts to bend first, which parts are stiff and at what point the leaf would snap off the branch. They'll ask questions like what kind of leaf is it, what is the season/weather like, how long has the tree and leaf been around, what is the environment polluted or natural, is it day or night, they'll even ask what message the shot is trying to convey.
They do this, because if they don't, people realize something is wrong but won't be able to say it, its just off. When you dig deep and get it right, they'll love it. That's where getting your stuff in front of people who have been doing it longer really helps.
Il add some more tidbits..
You know your doing an awesome animation for a bland object when everyone who sees it never notices it, let me expand on that... Nothing ruins a game more quickly for me than seeing a really poorly animated prop that just screeeeams lazy ass animator, when its nestled in with amazing AAA art/story ;(
A good example of this I found was the 1st time I played Halo3 that came with my brand new XBOX at the time. You start up its awesome AAA art a real good feel... then you start the 1st level, brilliant, amazing forest, oooh next gen, i like this alot.
Then It hit me, the bloody rats wherent even animated on the forest floor o.O , they scuttled about with there AI, but they never animated, they may aswell of been boxs for all I cared, ruined ;(
Thats another thing youl find yourself doing as an animator in games, youl be running around checking out how stuff moves and feels, forgetting the game ;D
Networking,networking,networking. If you have chances to go to industry events or any sort of industry related social gathering,by all means go. Shake hands,meet people and say make connections. If you are good at what you do and you are known by people in the industry and are in good standing it helps in a job search.
This. This beyond this. One of the best ways to excel is to humble yourself and realize you may be animating the most basic of basic for the longest time. Keep the profession in mind, but don't stress it early on or you'll be too critical on yourself. Best of luck.
To add on a side note I am getting Autodesk Education Bundle for Creation 2010 for $350 on a Student Discount and I get:
Maya, 3ds max, Mudbox, Sketchbook, Motionbuilder, Softimage
I would love any more advice
Make lots of art.
Read up and practice with the latest software.
Work on game Mods and/or indie game projects. UDK is a good place to start.
Keep your *%(@*! portfolio up-to-date. Spend one weekend every month updating it with the work you did that month.
I wouldn't sweat the portfolio for now... at all, your other advice is spot on though
...and I'm not currently in the game industry. Now I'm not saying my lack of portfolio updating is solely responsible, but it is most likely a contributing factor. This thread is advice for getting into the games industry. In that respect, I think regularly updating your portfolio is very good advice.
I'm a bit of an odd case, actually. I've been working in web development in one capacity or another for most of my brief career, so having a 3D portfolio isn't much of a priority for me. My next task for updating my personal site is slapping on a section for all of the webpages I've worked on, and making that section first and foremost. My 3D section is going to be squeezed into the back of my site quite soon.
I've always been a jack-of-all-trades, and this has hampered me in getting a job in the increasingly specialized game industry. I like to think that I'm taking the long, difficult way to get into games. If you want to get into game development quickly and easily, don't do what I'm doing.
or...just keep at it tailor to a company like people said, learn that NO is part of the process of this industry when first breaking in (and you will hear alot of No's before you hear a "yes" or even a "maybe")
but seriously heed every bit of advice these people have given you.. when I got my first assignment from school it was to make a ball bounce... we never even looked at it. (That was the only assignment besides make a short animation. - my school sucked balls) Everything on this page is gold - let me also add Speaking of animation which often has some good interviews, but is fairly new also Jason Ryan has an awesome set of 2d tutorials that he transfers into 3d as well as keep your eyes posted on Carlos Baena's blog, as he is one of the heads of AM and has some really good stuff. work hard and play hard.
More Advice would still be loved kindly
I'm with you there -- I love good animation and the bad stuff sticks out like a sore thumb -- but I would be very hesitant to go around calling people lazy without knowing the circumstances behind an asset's creation. Quality of execution depends so heavily on scheduling and resources available; if the game is huge and animation quality isn't a priority, then you're not going to have many animators and the schedule's going to be crazy and the quality suffers.
My personal rule is to avoid bagging on a specific aspect of a project because there are too many variables involved in the creation process. A walk cycle that looks terrible may in fact be pretty damn good if the animator was only given 30 minutes to complete it. I do, however, permit myself to make judgments when I see demo reels; there is a difference between creating a sub-par asset during extreme crunch for a shipped product, and putting that asset on your reel as an example of your best ability.
heh, all the animators I've met in the games industry rarely see the light of day.
some good advice in this thread.
My advice would be to get your portfolio massively beefed up before approaching a studio. Work on as many types of animation as you can think of, not just character stuff.
The example about the non-animated rat in halo is probably down to the schedule of the project and not the animators, this particular asset probably just didn't make the list. This is really the art directors fault, as nice touches like this are the concern of the person in charge of the "feel" of the environment, not the people who create assets for that environment.